Momo would not cry.

That is what she told herself as she willed Valerica out of her mind completely, shooting arrows at each miserable, self-pitying thought that deigned to seed itself again.

Because what business did she have crying? If anything, that exchange should have given her hope. It was Valerica herself who had suggested putting out the flame of war with a little conversation—so maybe she was serious about it?

Maybe Momo wouldn’t ever have to go against her wishes at all, and their imperfectly perfect relationship would be roses and lilies for the rest of time.

Momo frowned. Right. Because that seemed likely.

Still—it did not matter yet. It could, for all she knew, not matter for years, if she couldn’t get past the rest of these trials. The first one had been a lucky break.

She stood in front of the Axe Hallway, as she had decidedly named it. It was a skinny corridor with swinging axes all the way down. Swooshing-death for as far as the eye could see. There were other corridors in this floor of the dungeon too, but they seemed to lead her in circles.

No matter how far she walked down one, she’d reappear in the central room, in front of that stupid little bed. Sometimes she’d take a nap out of pure exasperation.

“Okay, axes,” she said, rolling up her sleeves. “I’m… I’m coming in.”

She took in a breath, steeled herself, and then… did not move.

Because inside of her was, if you could believe it, a self-preservation instinct. Even still.

The axes were moving very quickly. Her reflexes had gotten swift, especially since her Nether Dokkaebi upgrade, but she was not sure they were swift enough to avoid axes which were only a few inches apart, barely enough room for her body to stand between them.

But this clearly was the trial, so there had to be a solution for it. And given that there were no books to read—she had checked under the pillow and inside the bedrame—that meant there was no secret golden lever waiting to be pulled.

Her first instinct was to check if the corridor was infinite. Because if it was, her new [Nether Origami] skill would shorten it enough that even if she did get slashed, she may only get slashed once, and then she’d be done with the whole thing. Valerica would be waiting on the other side with a health potion and some inspiring words.

What was she even saying? When had Valerica ever given her a health potion?

The most the woman had given her was food poisoning.

Regardless, Momo stuck her hand upward, curling her fingers. “[Nether Origami].”

She heard a faint brr-brr error sound play in her head, as if she had just tried to recycle a computer file that was still open. So. Clearly not infinite.

Did she have any spells to slow down time? That would help. The axes would swing slowly enough that she could weave around them. But no. Nothing came to mind.

However… She did have [Nether Displacement], which allowed her to push her body through obstacles like a trespassing ghost.

She brightened. That seemed perfect for this. Plus, time was so slow in the Nether, she wouldn’t have to worry about its effects dwindling before she was out of the corridor. She remembered that fact from her previous time here with Clone Momo—the clone’s timer was only ten minutes on Alois, but in the Nether, she seemed to be able to exist indefinitely.

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“[Nether Displacement].”

She watched her hand morph in the torchlight, her fingers leaving the tangible world behind and entering the ethereal. As an experiment, she pressed them against the cold stone wall of the dungeon. She prepared for her hand to sink through the surface, but instead…

NETHER DISPLACEMENT SPELLS FORBIDDEN IN THIS ZONE

YOU CANNOT LEAVE THE DUNGEON—

—I MEAN, ONBOARDING AREA

Momo glared at the wall of text that had suddenly engraved itself on the stone.

“That does not seem fair,” she muttered. “Shouldn’t I be able to use all the tools at my disposal to solve these trials? Isn’t that like— the whole point?”

THAT IS NOT THE POINT.

THE POINT IS TO BE WHO YOU ARE NOW,

NOT WHO YOU WERE BEFORE.

Momo took at least fifteen minutes to try and make sense of that riddle.

She failed.

In fact, her intelligence suffered a few points in the process.

After another needed nap, and several anxious laps around the room, another idea finally struck her. Who she was now, as the wall had proclaimed so insistently, was a goddess. A goddess who was not confined to the skillset of Momo the Mortal.

Momo the Goddess—while limited so far to only two novel abilities—had so far only put one of those two abilities to use.

She had completely ignored what was possibly the most versatile skill of all.

Her shapeshifting skill. Death’s Many Forms.

Only, she had to be around something dead to use it—and there was nothing here but a bunch of walls and a hunk of well-dressed wood Valerica had dared to call a bed.

Unless…

“Biscuit,” Momo gasped.

She had completely forgotten about the tiny creature. Again.

“Are you still…” She looked down at her chest, wishing she could see through it. “There?”

She supposed there was only one good way to find out. Two birds, one stone. But first, it was best if she decided just what form she wanted to take on—what would allow her to most easily get through a narrow hallway where giant axes were flying back and forth from either side?

Narrowly she eyed the axes, and realized that they didn’t quite touch the floor. In fact, they swung a good two inches above it, even at their lowest point.

There were plenty of creatures that could fit under that.

But there was also the matter of the walls of fire that seemed to illuminate further down the corridor. She could be something like a lizard, but lizards weren’t exactly fireproof.

What was a creature that was both small and fireproof? God, did a fireproof creature even exist in the first place? She supposed she didn’t specifically have to morph into a creature—any old form would do, but she’d have to be able to conceptualize herself as that thing in order for it to work, so she was limited by the extent of her imagination.

What about—a fireproof lizard?

Potentially genius. Except, when she tried to imagine a fireproof lizard, her brain only managed to concoct the image of a… red lizard. Essentially… Radu. And Radu was not fireproof. Or was he? She couldn’t be certain. She also didn’t really want to turn into Radu.

That felt like crossing a boundary.

So, bottomline: she had no idea what actually went into making something fireproof, and that was problematic. She could try and turn into a firefighter, but then— firemen were not axe-proof. So once again: square one.

She squinted painfully and tried her best to remember anything useful from highschool biology.

Visualizing her old textbook in her head, the perfect candidate hit her like a ton of bricks.

The tardigrade.

She remembered reading about the little, near-indestructible water bears. They had caught her attention not for any scientific reason, but just because their shape was so adorable— their tiny claws poking out of their heavily wrinkled legs. She could recall the image of them perfectly.

All she’d have to do was size them up a bit in her brain— make them about two inches tall, instead of microscopic, able to walk on land, and…

“[Death’s Many Forms],” she whispered.

The Reaping Has Begun!

Target: Biscuit

Entering Form: …Large Tardigrade

Her body began to rapidly constrict, downsizing like she’d been hit by a shrink ray.

Wrinkles sprouted along her hands, and her fingers turned remarkably sharp.

In only a matter of seconds, she was viewing the dungeon from an entirely new perspective—her bed loomed as large as an iceberg, the axes swung like skyscrapers above her, carving through the air far above her. So far that they didn’t seem worrisome at all.

So with a large breath in, or as large as a tardigrade could manage, she began to walk.